Sir Percival spurred the borrowed police horse as far as the corner of York Avenue and 67th, where he swung his armored bulk down from the saddle to land on the sidewalk with a clangor that stopped the startled street vendors in their tracks. Grail in hand, he ran in past the security guards at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Cancer Center, who called after him, “What room number are you visiting, sir?”

[audio: GrailBearer.mp3]

Sarah Avery releases this story under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license. Feel free to download it (Download the zip file. Right click and select “save link as” or similar, depending on your browser.) and give it away, as long as you keep her name on it. If you like the story, she asks that you consider giving to the scholarship started by the man who inspired the story. Grail Bearer will also soon be available as a free downloadable ebook at Drollerie Press, released under the same license.

There is something magical about travelling by train. For Benjamin Jennings, the experience began with the walk into the station.

He saw railway stations as gateways to places far removed from the mundanity of everyday existence. As he walked through the door he felt himself entering a world of moving energy, of subtle but seductive echoes, of disembodied voices that spoke from unseen sources and with a curiously melodic tone peculiar to that environment. Even the flowing air seemed to have more purpose than the troublesome wind that pestered him in the street outside.

He would look at the strips of metal sitting in perfect symmetry between the platforms. He would follow their lines in both directions, marvelling in the knowledge that millions of other examples of their kind were fragmenting into a complex network, connecting him, both emotionally and physically, with every far-flung corner of the realm.

And then there was the boarding of the carriage and the thrill of its initial movement. He would watch the landscape as the train moved out into a world in which only it belonged, and see the vista gradually gathering pace for his very own delight. Near and far slipped by at differing speeds, but one thing he knew for certain: the view that he held in any one instant could only be seen from that privileged position.

And when those pictures had played themselves to a standstill he would disembark again. He would walk through another door in another place – ten, a hundred or a thousand miles from where he started; and the world would be different.

* * *

That was part of the reason why he did as much of his travelling as he could by train. But it wasn’t the only one. He was also an inveterate student of human behaviour, and where better to study people than in the confined environment of a railway carriage? He was assured of his recreation for at least as long as it took to travel from one station to another.

The group of people he was watching as he sat on the 1834 Nottingham to Crewe service consisted of four women. He observed that they were endorsing a feature of human nature that was already instilled into his understanding of group interaction. Men and women behave differently.

In all-male assemblies the participants tend to compete – to use the loudest voice, to tell the funniest story, or to have the upper hand in any serious discussion. Women, on the other hand, seem content to act like female elephants, letting one of their number – the alpha female, as it were – hold centre stage. Whilst one woman does all the talking, the others nod a lot or offer other demonstrations of concurrence.

This particular group of women were behaving according to form. The alpha female was bold, brassy and blonde. She looked to be in her mid forties and was a little heavy around the shoulders and bosom. He couldn’t see the rest of her. She was not pretty, but she did have a certain worldly look that Benjamin realised might be attractive to some men. He didn’t see it that way, but what he did find attractive was her accent. It was unmistakeably Dublin – thick and rich, with darkly alluring inflections. He felt compelled to listen attentively to every word as he glanced around at her three companions.

They all had black or nearly black hair. Two looked to be in their thirties. One was tall and skinny, with a long, narrow head and nose. She was wearing a modern, pointed bonnet that matched her face in a manner of speaking, but gave her the appearance of a hopelessly overgrown elf. The other had a pleasing, homely sort of face with a slightly ruddy complexion. Some foremost strands of her long, straight hair had been fashioned into narrow plaits that hung either side of her cheeks. She saw Benjamin looking at them at one point and smiled a radiant smile through her chestnut-brown eyes. Benjamin felt an inner glow and smiled back.

But it was the third of the companions that fascinated him. He estimated her age at around eighteen or nineteen. It was difficult to be sure, perhaps because she had the look of an urchin about her. She was the smallest of the group and easily the prettiest. But her face carried a haunted look, pale and undernourished, as though she had stopped growing at an early age. Her hair was short and untended, her eyes a piercing shade of mid blue, and when she smiled briefly at something the brassy blonde had said her open mouth revealed the small teeth so typical of the Irish waif. Benjamin had seen them before in the mouths of roughshod girls begging money from the Dublin tourists.
And something about her didn’t quite seem to belong to the dynamic of the ensemble. She spent less time concurring and more looking absent-mindedly out of the window, even though there was nothing to see save the flecks of rain struggling across the glass from one side to the other. Darkness had long since fallen on the late autumn landscape. Benjamin wondered whether she was simply looking at her own reflection, considering perhaps why life had not made her more robust.

All three spoke briefly in turn – either to agree with some pronouncement of the older matriarch or to ask a question. They all had Dublin accents. The talk was mainly of the relative merits of various towns’ shopping facilities, as well as the sleeping arrangements for that night. Benjamin concluded that the blonde was domiciled in England, and that her companions were recent arrivals. It soon became apparent that the women would be leaving the train at Derby to catch a connection for Birmingham. Benjamin’s attention remained centred on the young girl.

She seemed familiar, but he decided that she was just an archetype – a poor girl from the impoverished back streets of Dublin who reminded him of Joyce, Yeats and Sean O’Casey. She was different from the others in one respect, though; she was the only one who never looked at him as the vehicle rattled relentlessly along the invisible Trent Valley. Or so he thought.

The train began to slow and the announcement was made that it would shortly be entering Derby. The four women gathered their belongings and began to move out into the aisle. Benjamin had so enjoyed listening to their voices that he felt moved to offer his thanks. He was only two seats away, and so he stood up and spoke.

“Excuse me ladies. I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to thank you for the enjoyment you’ve given me on the trip from Nottingham. There’s nothing like a Dublin accent to set a man’s heart racing, even an old one like mine. The best of luck to you, now.”

The blonde and the overgrown elf glanced at him briefly, and then turned away. The woman with the plaits looked him in the eye and smiled warmly again. She said “thank you.” The young girl ignored him. They moved down the aisle as the train came to a halt and then disembarked with a gaggle of other passengers leaving the train.

Benjamin sat down again. He wasn’t due to get off until they reached Stoke, five more stops down the line. He watched as the group walked past his window. He thought he saw the young girl’s eyes turn briefly towards him. He couldn’t be sure; and the blonde was holding forth again, commanding the rapt attention of the other two brunettes.

Half an hour later he was driving out of the long-stay car park, a hundred yards from the entrance to Stoke-on-Trent station. He turned right to drive past the distinctive Victorian façade and was forced to stop and wait by the red light of a pedestrian crossing. He watched as two young people, students he assumed, crossed in front of him. He tapped the steering wheel impatiently and looked idly across to the main doorway into the station. There, standing rigidly and watching him intently, was the young Irish girl from the train.

For a moment he was startled, but then decided that her appearance was impossible. He’d seen her get off at Derby. She must be a trick of the light or his fertile imagination. She had made an impression on him, and this was simply another young girl who looked like her. It did seem odd, though, that the vision continued to watch him after the lights changed and he drove past the entrance. And she did look remarkably like the girl who had caught his attention so strongly. He shrugged and drove home to his modest terrace about two miles from the station. He was tired and spent an uneventful evening before going to bed early.

At 9.30 the following morning there was a knock on his front door. Benjamin was the deputy front-of-house manager at a theatre conveniently situated about five minutes walk away. His shift began at 10, and he was just settling his tie knot into his collar when he heard the rapping. He opened it to see a neighbour who lived across the road.

“Thought I might catch you before you went to work,” began the neighbour. “I thought you might want to know that there was a young girl hanging around your house last night. I saw her when I went to bed at about eleven. Just a kid, she was. Small, bit scruffy, long black skirt and a grey coat – at least that’s what colour they looked in the streetlights. I watched her with the light off for a bit. She was walking up and down, stopping every time she passed your front door. I thought she was going to knock at one point, but then she pulled back. Eventually she walked off towards the main road. Do you know who she is?”

Benjamin had thought about his encounter with the women on the train several times since he’d got up, and this was something of a bolt from the blue. But, intriguing as the neighbour’s intelligence was, he felt that the man’s final question was unnecessarily intrusive. He shook his head and said

“No, no idea. Maybe she got the wrong house or something.”

“Yeah, maybe. Oh well, just thought I’d tell you.”

“Right, thanks,” answered Benjamin curtly, indicating that there was no further conversation to be had on the matter.

Following the apparent sighting outside the station, this latest bit of news had Benjamin feeling both uneasy and excited in equal measure. There was something sinister about it – or was there? Could it just be the most outrageous coincidence? He frowned and shook his head. If it wasn’t a coincidence, who on earth could she be? Or should he be asking himself “what” could she be? Benjamin puzzled over it as he walked the short distance to the theatre.

He told his manager about the strange sightings when he got there, but she was a confirmed pragmatist who shrugged the whole thing off as a minor coincidence. Benjamin decided that she was probably right. That decision held sway for a mere five minutes, just until he was walking across the restaurant situated on the upper floor of the two-storey building.

He looked out of the floor-length windows that made up one side of the room. A young, scruffily dressed woman was standing outside the main entrance, looking at the double doors. She was wearing a long, dark skirt and a light grey coat. It was full daylight, and he had no doubt that she was the girl he had seen on the train.

He stared at her for several seconds, until she looked up and saw him. Their eyes met briefly, and then she started to walk towards the doors. It seemed she was coming in.

He made all speed across the restaurant and hurried down the staircase that reached the ground floor close to the box office. He scanned the foyer in both directions but it was empty. He enquired of the box office staff whether they had seen a young woman come in. Both of them shook their heads. He ran out of the double doors, down to the gate on the main road, and then back beyond the front of the building to the car park. There was no sign of the girl and he went inside feeling confused and irritated.

He told his manager of the latest sighting. She smiled indulgently and made some comment about his overcooked imagination turning every young female stranger into the pretty Irish colleen who had tugged his heart strings on a train. Having dismissed the subject, she introduced a more mundane topic. She had a meeting arranged with a man from the big, city centre receiving house. It was to do with a reciprocal publicity arrangement and was quite important. The meeting was arranged for lunchtime and something pressing had come up which precluded her attending. She asked Benjamin if he would go in her place and gave him a briefing on the topics for discussion.

Much as he liked the theatre atmosphere, Benjamin was glad of the opportunity to get away from the workplace for an hour or so. The meeting was scheduled for 1.30 at the Scala Milano coffee shop, and he was told he could leave half an hour earlier if he wished, to take advantage of the shopping facilities. He had no shopping to do, but gratefully accepted the chance to have a little time to himself.

He slipped away shortly before one and walked briskly to his car parked on the street outside his house. He made the short drive to the city centre and headed for a car park close to the coffee shop. It was 1.15 as he approached the entrance. He considered whether to go in and have a preliminary cup of coffee, or whether to browse around the nearby bookshop first. He knew that he tended to lose track of the time when he browsed bookshelves, and so he decided to relax in the heady atmosphere of coffee grounds and light jazz music whilst he awaited his contact.

There was no one at the counter when he approached, and so he didn’t have to queue to order his regular Americano with pouring cream. Taking the steaming beverage and the small earthenware pot, he turned to look for a vacant table.

A prickly sensation ran up his back as he saw, sitting alone at a table for two, a small, slim, dark haired girl. She had her back to him, and so all he could see of her clothing was a light grey coat. It was enough to set his heart knocking, audibly it seemed, against his chest. He walked slowly to a point just beyond the solitary girl and looked into her face. She looked back and recoiled slightly.

“Oh, my God,” she exclaimed quietly. “It’s you. How the hell did you find me?”

It was the same girl and the same Dublin accent. Benjamin looked blankly at her for several seconds, unsure how to open a conversation with this wraith made manifest. She pre-empted his efforts by asking another question.

“Did you follow me in here?”

Benjamin shook his head. “No, I’m here to meet somebody.”

“Oh well,” she said wistfully, “whatever happened, happened.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

The girl looked earnestly into his eyes. There was a hint of pleading in them, as though she had been discovered in some guilty secret. She rose and said “Look, why don’t I just leave right now and you forget you ever set eyes on me? Then you can get on with your meeting and you’ll never see me again.”

Benjamin felt irritated. Surely, she couldn’t expect him to agree to that.

“You’ve got to be joking, haven’t you? You materialise mysteriously outside the train station, you creep about outside my house at the dead of night, you turn up at my workplace… I was beginning to think I was being haunted or something. The least you can do is give me an explanation.”

It was clear from the girl’s expression that she knew he was right, but she shook her head.

“There’s two problems with that. First, I doubt you’d understand; and second, there’s no way you’d believe me.”

“Well,” answered Benjamin, “on the first count, I’m reasonably intelligent. And on the second, whether I believe you or not is my problem. You still owe me.”

The girl looked at him for a few moments and then slumped back onto her seat.

“OK. There’s a chair. Sit yourself down and I’ll do me best. Where the hell do I start, though?”

“You could tell me your name.”

“Oh yeah, right! Even that’s unbelievable. It’s Molly – Molly Malone. Seems my mother had a thing about that stupid song when she was pregnant with me. Can you imagine how many times I got called ‘cockles and muscles’ when I was a kid, or asked where I’d left me wheelbarrow today?”

Benjamin smiled. “I think it’s a nice name.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not important anyway. What’s important is how I’m going to explain to you what I’m doing here.”

“Well, whatever it is, at least I’m glad you’re not a ghost or a hallucination.”

“I’m not so sure about that. They’d be a bit easier to explain.” The girl looked at him for a second, a gentle frown creasing the pale skin on her brow. She shook her head slightly, closed her eyes momentarily, took a deep breath, and began.

“Right, here goes then. First, I’m not from this time. I’m from two hundred years in the future. Second, my boyfriend’s the reincarnation of you in a future life. D’you want me to go on?”

Benjamin stared at her, thinking against hope that he’d misheard what the girl had said. As ludicrous as it sounded, he felt even more intrigued by the pretty, unassuming and forthright young woman who had followed his footsteps for several hours.

“Of course.”

The girl took another deep breath and composed herself. “Right then, I suppose I’d better give you a twenty third century history lesson if the rest is to make any sense.

“The first thing you need to know is that the world, especially here in the west, is going to change dramatically over the next hundred years or so. The history books of my time refer to the twentieth and twenty first centuries as the D Age – D standing for decadent. Briefly, what happened was this.

“By the end of the twenty first century climate change was wreaking havoc everywhere – famines, droughts, floods, millions of refugees, that sort of thing. Eventually the pressures on the world economy crashed it altogether and there was a massive, worldwide depression. The economic growth that the developed world had come to rely on went completely out of the window.

“That sparked major social unrest in the whole industrialised world. Governments lost control and martial law was brought in, but even that got swamped pretty quickly. The anarchy that followed was so depraved that it’s reckoned to have been the darkest period in human history. Only the mega rich were able to get off to their little boltholes. The rest had to put up with it.

“After a few decades society had become polarised into two factions. Some people belonged to vicious, lawless gangs who used their power and aggression to take what they wanted. The majority of people, however, had grown tired of all the shit they were having to put up with and mobilised their resistance. A few good leaders came to the fore, and some of them became legends – my grandfather for one. They, and the weight of numbers, took the gangs on and won the day.

“The whole thing made people come to their senses. They realised that the obsession with prosperity and material values had caused all the trouble in the first place, and so they decided to create a new society based on a much simpler lifestyle. At first they took their cue – in a social and political sense, at least – from the Amish in twentieth century America.

“But there was also a desire to connect with a new and more organic form of spiritual tradition. The dark time had focussed people’s minds on the meaning of life and what might lie beyond it. Islam had grown stronger and more extreme in Africa and much of Asia, but Christianity had faded away altogether in Europe and America.

“They naturally gravitated towards a sort of combination of Vedic and pagan traditions. The religion – if you want to call it that – that developed included everything from shamanic practices and herbal medicine to an understanding of the multi-level nature of spiritual development. And it became commonly accepted that the process of life, death and rebirth was the simple key to understanding the nature and purpose of existence.

“One effect of all this was that kids were encouraged from birth to cultivate faculties that had been repressed through hundreds of generations – psychic faculties that soon blossomed to a very high level. Most people are now able, for example, to remember large parts of their previous physical lives.

“And then a number of people came forward who knew the location of certain ancient texts – texts that contained the lost knowledge that even the D Age scientists had realised must have existed. It soon became apparent that the old reliance on hard technology had been clumsy and limited. The two keys to controlling everything – from personal wellbeing to the biggest civil engineering projects – were knowing how to use the vibrational rates of matter and how to harness the power of will.

“And it was commonly understood that time was one of the great illusions. It doesn’t exist in any objective sense. There is only infinite reality; and even the concept of ‘infinite’ falls short of an adequate definition. Are you still with me?”

Benjamin had looked steadily into the girl’s eyes throughout the explanation. She seemed genuine.

“I understand what you’re saying, yes,” he said guardedly. “Whether I believe it or not is another matter.”

His statement reflected only a desire not to appear gullible. In actual fact, he did believe her. Everything about her – the simplicity of her dress, the lack of pretension in her bearing and, most of all, the wisdom and sincerity that shone steadily out of her young eyes – made her eminently believable.

“Go on,” he said.

“OK. Time travel, for want of a better way of putting it, isn’t so difficult once you’ve learned to adjust your physical vibrational rate and combine it with the power of will. The first enables you to switch into any other aspect of reality, and the second gives you the means to go wherever you want. It’s a big form of recreation in my time. People don costumes and join Napoleon’s army, or sit in on the great European courts – knowing they can leave as soon as the going gets tough or they get sickened by the blood and guts. What I wanted to do was a bit more personal.

“I’m very much in love with my boyfriend. More than that, I feel such a deep attachment to him that I know I want to spend the rest of my life with him – and maybe at least some of our future lives as well. And it’s obvious that he feels the same way, but for one thing. He keeps avoiding the issue of marriage. He says it doesn’t feel right but he can’t tell me why.

“We both know that this attachment began in one of our earlier incarnations. I remember which one it was, and I remember the thrill I felt when I first set eyes on him and heard his voice. What I couldn’t recall was what he looked like then. He doesn’t remember our previous meeting, but then he isn’t as advanced as I am in the psychic side of things. Nevertheless, he says he’s sure that the unease he feels about us being married has its root in that earlier incarnation. So I decided to bring myself back to meet my former self and see whether I could find any clue as to what was troubling him. Not that I could make any difference, I just wanted to know.

“Connecting with one of your own incarnations is a pretty easy thing to do if you’re well practiced. You have a bond that draws you together naturally. I focussed on her and found myself walking out of a changing cubicle in a shop in twenty first century Nottingham. She was just coming out of the other one. She didn’t know who I was, of course. But she obviously recognised that there was something instinctive between us and we got to talking quite easily.

“It turned out that she was over from Dublin with a friend of hers It quite surprised me that I’d been reborn in the same city; I hadn’t realised that. They were meeting a mutual friend and were planning to stay for a week shopping and seeing the sights in England.

“When she heard my accent she asked me if I wanted to tag along with them and I agreed. That was another thing that surprised me – how little the accent had changed. But then, we’re taught that there was a sort of cultural hiatus during the dark time, and the usual evolution in things like language hadn’t happened in the way it normally would in two hundred years.

“Her name was Moya, and she took me to meet her two friends, Lizzie and Sue. Lizzie was the older, blonde woman, and Sue was the tall, thin one. Moya was the one you latched onto, the one with the braids in her hair. Remember? On the train? Actually, it would be truer to say that she latched onto you. That’s how I knew who you were.

“It came as quite a shock, I can tell you. It didn’t take much of my psychic ability to feel the energy that was generated when you looked at her braids and she smiled at you. She was completely bowled over. I felt your reaction too, even though you kept it well under wraps.” Benjamin smiled and inclined his head. “And when you spoke to us later, I recognised the voice straight away.

“So there I was,” continued the girl, “sitting not only with my own former self but with Rory’s as well. For some reason I didn’t want to look at you – preferred to feel the energies, I suppose. They tend to give you more honest information. I kept an eye on your reflection in the window, though. And now we’re sitting face to face and I can feel the connection between us. I haven’t had that experience before. Bit freaky, actually.”

Molly went silent for a while and looked into Benjamin’s eyes, seemingly searching for the soul of her fiancé that she knew must be mirrored there. Benjamin felt the connection too, but he also wanted to hear the rest of the story and ask a few pertinent questions.

“So what happened at Derby?” he asked. “How did you get to Stoke?”

“Oh right, yeah. No magic there. I just made my excuses to the others and jumped back on the train in the carriage behind yours. I booked to the end of the line and waited to see where you got off. Then I followed you out of the station and caught one of the rank cabs to see where you lived.

“I was really torn that night. Part of me desperately wanted to meet you, while another part sensed that it might complicate things. I couldn’t see how or why, but I just felt uneasy. So I chose not to.

“But I wanted to know more about you, so I shifted to eight o’clock the next morning and hung around the street corner, waiting for you to go to work. It was bloody cold, I can tell you. And I wasn’t even sure that you would go to work. But then you did and I followed you up there.

“It was the same as the night before – the indecision as to whether I wanted to meet you or not. When I saw you watching me through the window I decided to take the plunge. Then I got cold feet again.”

“So where did you hide?”

“I didn’t. Like I said, it’s all a matter of controlling vibrational rates. I was there, you just couldn’t see me. I felt stupid and decided I wanted a hot cup of coffee. I got directions to the city centre was and walked up here. And then you walked in and I realised we must have met after all.”

“Must have met when?”

“Now.”

Benjamin frowned and the girl explained.

“Sorry, I’m looking at it from my own time. Now is the past to me, you understand.”

“Oh, I see. At least, I think I see. But hang on a bit; that raises a big question. I’ve always thought the problem with travelling back in time is what I think they call the grandfather syndrome. Suppose you go back in time and kill an ancestor before he or she produces children. That would mean that you could never have been born and then you couldn’t have gone back and killed the ancestor – and that produces an impossible syndrome.

“And what about the bigger problem? Surely, every person whose life you’ve touched by coming back has had their life path changed as a result. That means the future is different than it would have been. Isn’t that a serious danger?”

“No. It’s all to do with determinism. Do you know what that is?”

“Vaguely.”

“It’s pretty simple really. Everything that happens has a cause. Every decision we make is made for a reason – even if it seems like a random choice. There’s always a reason. That’s why every single fact in the whole of reality is already there. We have free choice, yes, but the exercise of that choice is as dependant on the principle of cause and effect as everything else. If I travel back in time, I can only do it because it’s already happened – if you see what I mean.

“You say ‘suppose you go back and kill your ancestor. Then you couldn’t have been born.’ It works the other way round. The fact that I exist means that my ancestor didn’t die. However hard I tried to kill him, it would be impossible. I couldn’t do it because it didn’t happen.

“When I was telling you about Moya, it occurred to me that it would be nice to introduce you to her. But I remember my life as Moya, and I know that she only had that one brief meeting with you. So there wouldn’t be any point in trying to engineer something that would be doomed to failure. You’ll have to forget about her for now. The bond is established but it won’t come to fruition for a while. Moya becomes me, you become Rory. That’s when we meet in earnest. It’s written.”

Molly stopped talking and began to drink her coffee. Benjamin sat looking at her, his chin resting on his folded hands. The attraction was real enough; he could feel it getting stronger. But she was only a temporary visitor and he was, theoretically at least, old enough to be her grandfather. She drained the last mouthful and leaned forward towards him.

“I suppose all this must be a bit difficult to take in, eh? Don’t you have any questions?”

“I suppose I’d have plenty, given time. At the moment I’m still fathoming the logic. One thing that does occur to me though: what do you do for money – for the train, the taxi, the coffee?”

“Oh, that’s easy. For the earlier periods we have loads of facsimile stocks. It’s easy enough to make. And for this sort of period we have a clever card – made to look like a credit card. It can fool any pre-anarchy technology. I just got a load from a cash point up the road. Here, have some.”

She idly pulled a wad of fifty-pound notes out of her bag and placed them in front of Benjamin.

“I can’t take that,” whispered Benjamin.

He looked furtively around the room. Handing around large sums of money in a coffee shop would look more than a little suspicious.

“Why not?”

“Well…it’s not mine.”

“It’s not anybody’s. Money’s an illusion too, you know. It’s all just part of a game being played over your head by a few very powerful people. That’s something else people learned when everything was falling apart. Go on, buy yourself some new clothes or something. It’ll be no use to me when I get back.”

Benjamin frowned and shook his head.

“OK,” said Molly. “Suit yourself.” She pushed the money back into her bag and folded her hands on her lap. “Do you have any more questions?”

Benjamin was about to ask whether time travellers aged during their travels, when he saw a smartly dressed young man approaching the table.

“You must be who I’m meeting,” said the intruder, pointing to the badge that Benjamin was wearing for recognition. “I was expecting Judith Barker.”

Benjamin felt irritated. He had warmed to the young woman who had held his attention for the past fifteen minutes, and now he was going to have to discuss marketing arrangements with some smart young receiving house executive. Molly got up.

“I suppose I’d better leave you to it then,” she said as she moved out from the table. “Is there a toilet in here?”

“Top of the stairs and turn left,” said Benjamin.

This prospective parting felt painful. He wanted to ask “will I see you again?” but realised it would sound inappropriate.

“Will you be back?” he asked instead.

“Don’t know for certain. Maybe.”

With that she tripped lightly up the stairs. Benjamin watched her go and then settled himself to the matter in hand.

The meeting seemed interminable. Benjamin did his best, but he was conscious of the fact that his real attention lay with the staircase. He was anxious to see Molly come down them again. She didn’t and the two men eventually concluded the necessary agreements. The other man left and Benjamin went upstairs.

He saw that there was a female member of staff on her lunch break, and asked whether she would mind checking the ladies’ toilet. He explained that a friend of his had gone in there and he hadn’t seen her leave. The woman agreed and came out a few seconds later.

“Nobody in there,” she said.

“Is there another way out?”

“Only through the staff kitchen, but that’s on a keypad lock.”

“OK, I must have missed her then.”

Benjamin felt more deflated than he would have imagined. He took himself reluctantly back to work, but had little interest in his duties. He decided not to tell his manager of the meeting with Molly. He had no doubt that Judith, kind and generous though she was, would put a pragmatic interpretation on it all. He didn’t want to hear it. Instead, he got through the day, went home and spent the evening thinking of little else.

He ran over and over in his head what Molly had said about time travel. The logic kept on reaching dead ends here and there, and he felt that there had to be more to it. But it wasn’t the convoluted philosophy of temporal logic that was troubling him, it was the feeling that something meaningful was missing from his life, something that he had been granted briefly before having it taken away again. He remembered her words.

“Don’t know for certain. Maybe.”

But when? If she were going to visit him again, when and how would she do it? And would there be any point? He knew there was nothing he could do to influence matters since he had no way of reaching through the time barrier. All he could do was to carry on with his life and drop any notion of hope or expectation. They would probably lead only to disappointment. If he were ever going to meet again, it would have to be at Molly’s bidding and he would treat it as a bonus if it happened. By the time it did happen, he had long since given up on the idea.

It was three years later and around the same time of year. The Scala Milano coffee shop had become an even bigger favourite than ever, and a treat that he indulged at least twice a week. He had also taken, whenever possible, to sitting at the same table as the one he had shared with Molly. At first he had hoped that it might encourage history to repeat itself. More latterly it had simply become a habit.

It was shortly after lunchtime and the shop was busy. His favourite table was free and so he sat down, eased a small quantity of pouring cream into his drink and settled to the strains of Ella Fitzgerald singing Every Time We Say Goodbye.

He felt nostalgic. More than that, he felt a longing to see Molly again every bit as strongly as he had during the first few weeks after she had taken her leave. He swung his legs out into the aisle and crossed one over the other. He took a sip from his cup, savouring the dark, cream-tinged richness of double-shot Americano.

He glanced up as he saw a dark skirt coming down the staircase to his right. The bottom of a light grey coat came into view and he prepared a dismissive smile on the presumption that it would be another false alarm. It had happened several times over the last three years. But then the full figure made its unbelievable entrance and Molly’s small mouth grinned as broadly as it was able.

“Hello Ben. D’ya want more coffee?”

Benjamin stared open mouthed and shook his head slowly.

“Give us a minute then would ya, while I get one?”

It was at least three minutes before she returned and took the seat opposite. It seemed longer, and Benjamin had already smiled wryly at the irony of thinking what a strange commodity time was.

“Has your visitor gone then?” asked Molly as she prepared to spoon the top off her cappuccino.

“My visitor?”

“The man you were meeting. I tried to time my return for half an hour after I left. I thought I might miss you – that you would already have left. Then I’d have had to find where you lived again. It’s not that easy to latch onto somebody you’re not directly connected with.”

Benjamin looked at his watch. It was five past two. He glanced back at the girl.

“I think you got your calculations wrong. That was three years ago.”

“Was it?” exclaimed Molly. “Fuck. Oh well, that happens sometimes. It isn’t really a matter of calculation; it’s more instinctive than that. I thought you were wearing different clothes. Sorry. You must have thought I wasn’t coming, I suppose.”

Benjamin nodded.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t planning to – not until I got to thinking and talking to Rory.”

She placed a spoonful of cappuccino froth into her mouth and savoured it.

“Wow, this is one reason for coming back if nothing else. We don’t get luxuries like this in my time. We don’t do luxury any more. Funny really, our technology is so far ahead of yours. But it’s AV technology now – that’s Advanced Quantum if you didn’t know. Means we can do all sorts of clever things without raiding the earth for materials. It’s responsive to the power of will you see, if you know how to use it. And it’s how we get by without needing money.”

She took another mouthful and then sipped the dark brew beneath. Benjamin decided not to ask about advanced quantum technology. He was still feeling light headed from the shock and pleasure of seeing her again.

“So why did you come back? What was this talk you had with Rory?”

Molly’s demeanour took on a more serious air.

“Mm, that. I’m going to have to do a bit more explaining, I’m afraid. I’ve decided to do something that isn’t exactly encouraged. It’ll affect you in a manner of speaking, though you won’t know it. At least, this you will know because I’m about to tell you; but the other one won’t.”

Benjamin lifted his eyebrows and shook his head in wonder. Molly had the look of someone with a heavy weight on her shoulders.

“Right,” she said eventually, “let’s see if I can make a decent job of explaining this to you. How much time have you got?”

“All day if necessary.”

“That’s good, though it shouldn’t take quite that long.

“First, the stuff about Rory. I told him about our last meeting and it didn’t take him long to realise that my meeting with you was the source of his problem. How old were you then?”

“Fifty four.”

“That’s about what I thought. And I’m nineteen. You’re old enough to be my grandfather, right?”

Benjamin felt chastened to hear Molly give voice to a fact that he had already worked out for himself. He nodded.

“Rory realised he had some inbuilt perception of me based on a deep rooted memory of that meeting. He said he understood that it’s why he felt the way he did. Some inner part of his mentality saw a massive age gap between us, too massive to contemplate marriage even though his rational mind knew it wasn’t so.

“I asked him if he thought he could get over it, now he knew where it came from. He said he didn’t know. He said it was so deeply embedded that he couldn’t guarantee it; and, as long as he felt that way, he would always be uneasy about us being married, having a physical relationship and so on. In our time sex is something we tend not to do until we’re married, by the way. But then, lots of people get married as soon as they’ve passed puberty. We live more by the laws of nature than you do. I’m pretty old to still be a virgin.

“Anyway, the point is that I want kids and I want them with Rory. But I can’t do anything to change what exists. Remember what I told you about determinism?”

“I think I understood it, yes.”

“Well, there’s a bit more to it than that – and this is where it gets complicated.

“Remember me saying that you wouldn’t be able to go back and kill your ancestor before he’d been able to have children, because the fact that you exist means he couldn’t have died? Well, when time travel was in its infancy that was the established view on the matter.

“But some people weren’t satisfied. They did some carefully controlled experiments in which researchers were sent back with instructions to do something, and then go back again and do it differently. The scenarios were carefully worked out so that they would make a simple, but different, choice the second time around – say, turning left down a street instead of right. They were also instructed to do something pretty innocuous like chipping a small piece out of the base of a statue that was still standing in the future time. That change would be observable and would prove that the course of events could be altered.

“It didn’t work out that way. What happened was this.

“When we make a temporal trip, we return in the same instant that we leave. Even if we’re away for a year, no time passes in our own world while we’re doing it. What we do have, though, is the memory of all that happened during that year. Something interesting happened to the people attempting to make a return trip.

“They went into the usual T state, but then immediately came out of it again with a feeling of déjà vu. They said that they felt some kind of energy blockage that prevented the normal trip back in time. And, as you might expect, there was no chip in the base of the statue.

“At first it was assumed that it was some mysterious workings of the determinist mechanism preventing any meddling with the infinite reality. But then a different hypothesis was put forward – and one that found favour with the quantum scientists of the time.

“It was postulated – though everybody knew it would be quite unprovable – that simple determinism only works for the single reality line that we’re all on. So you can go back in time, do whatever you’re able to do, and it won’t make any difference to the future because it’s already happened. But if you go back a second time and do something different, then you create a different reality line – a parallel universe if you like. If that theory is correct, what was happening with the volunteers was this.

“The instant they did something different on the second trip, his or her consciousness created – and switched into – the new line. The version of that person who set out on the experiment had no knowledge of ever having gone back because, to them, it never happened. Meanwhile, the new version of the volunteer returns to their own time, the one that now exists in tandem with the original. They have full memory of what they did and go to look at the chip in the statue. It’s become worn and weathered over the intervening years and the person realises that it was he or she who put it there. But they have no knowledge of ever having been part of an experiment, because no experiment existed on that reality line.

“The problem with all this is that every person whose life that individual touched on the first trip, and whose path is changed on the second, also becomes part of the new reality line in an altered form. If you want to put it this way, another version of them is created which will now follow a different path than the one in the original line. Everybody else is an exact duplicate following the same path, except where they interact with factors influenced differently by the changed person.

“Have I lost you yet?”

“Well, it’s a bit hazy at the moment, but I think I get the general drift.”

“I know that’s a lot to swallow in one go, but I needed to explain it so that you can understand what I’m planning to do. You also have a right to ask me not to do it since you are the one whose alter-ego in the parallel universe will be affected – though I’ve thought about all the contact between us and can’t see that it should make much difference. And, in any case, the version of you that’s sitting here at the moment will be completely unaware of it. You’ll carry on with your life as though nothing has happened.

“The person I’m more concerned about is the taxi driver who brought me to your house that first night. The new version of him won’t make that trip, and his future path might be changed dramatically. I hope nothing bad happens to him.”

“Mm,” offered Benjamin thoughtfully. “You haven’t told me yet what you’re planning to do, but I assume it involves going back to that point three yeas ago and changing something.”

“That’s about it. I’ll do everything exactly the same as before except that I won’t get back on the train at Derby. You and I will never meet. Do you mind?”

“I suppose not. As you say, it won’t make any difference to this me, will it? And, if I’m getting the picture right, the fact that you’re able to do that – if you’re able to do it – will mean that it’s already happened anyway.”

“Er, not quite. This time we’re talking about creating a new time line, not altering the future on this one. It would be truer to say ‘because it was always going to happen.’”

“Oh, I see,” said Benjamin looking anything but enlightened. “So exactly how will this solve your problem with Rory?”

“It won’t, not for the Molly sitting in that timeless moment in the future and talking to you now. She’ll simply find the trip impossible and go about the life she’s stuck with. But she’ll know that a parallel version of herself might have been created and be organising a different future for the two of them. As soon as I make that one change at the station my consciousness will split. The here-and-now version of me will walk off with the three women, unaware of what I’ve just done. I’ll return to my own time where the situation between Rory and me will be different. That’s if the theory is correct, of course.”

Benjamin lifted his eyebrows again, shook his head, took a deep breath and exhaled it fully.

“This is pretty heady stuff, you know. At this point in history, time travel and parallel universes are the preserve of science fiction.”

“Not quite. Read up on quantum physics. They’re starting to get the picture too.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve heard that even physics students have trouble with that one.”

“You’re not a physics student, though, are you? Scientists have a lot of knowledge in their heads, but they tend to be stuck between the tram lines. There’s no limit to where your mind will go; it’s one of your more endearing features.”

Benjamin chuckled. “I have others?”

“Yeah, sure you do. I was thinking after our last meeting – if Rory won’t set me on the road to motherhood, I might get you to do the job instead.”

The look of shock on Benjamin’s face sent Molly into peels of childlike giggles.

“You need have no worries on that score,” she said eventually. “It wouldn’t be possible, I’m afraid. Sorry.”

“Yes, well…quite right too,” Benjamin muttered, covering his embarrassment with a sideways glance.

Molly reached out with both her hands and laid them on top of Benjamin’s.

“I’m off to the ladies again now,” she said. “Can I come and visit you again?”

“I’d like nothing better, as long as it won’t screw anything up.”

“It won’t, just as long as I don’t go back to a time before our most recent meeting.”

“What would happen if you did?”

“Work it out for yourself. You’ve got a brain.”

She stood up and kissed his cheek.

“Thank you for providing me with so much pleasure on my trip. There’s nothing like a refined English accent to set a girl’s heart racing; even a young one like mine. The best of luck to you, now.”

Benjamin smiled gratefully at the recollection; it sounded so much better in a Dublin accent. And then she added, “I’ll be back.”

With that she tripped lightly up the stairs and was gone.

* * *

Benjamin Jennings was sitting in his car, waiting at a red traffic light outside Stoke-on-Trent railway station. As he watched the two young people, students he supposed, crossing in front of him, he reflected on the four women he had briefly encountered on his train ride from Nottingham.

They had all been Irish, and he had particular cause to remember two of them. One was young, pretty and quite fascinating. But she had remained aloof from everything and everyone around her. The other was a brunette with a rather beautiful, homely sort of face and braided hair. The way she had smiled at him when she caught him looking at her braids! He had felt something truly magical coming out of those eyes, something that suggested a permanence of connection. The memory sent a warm glow of romantic longing coursing through his body.

It seemed quite unjust that their encounter should have been so fleeting and of no consequence. He didn’t even know her name, and it was obvious that they would never meet again. He also remembered the fact that the young girl had stopped and regarded him intensely through the carriage window after she and her three companions had disembarked at Derby. Why she should have done that, he couldn’t imagine. And then there was the strange feeling of déjà vu he had experienced as soon as she’d turned away and hurried to rejoin her companions. He felt frustrated. Something was missing.

He glanced idly at the empty doorway of the station entrance, and the empty foyer beyond that. The lights changed and he drove home to his modest terrace about two miles from the station. He was tired and spent an uneventful evening before going to bed early.

Meanwhile, in another dimension further away than the furthest corner of the universe and yet closer than his own skin, another picture was unfolding. Had he known that, he would have marvelled in the knowledge that maybe an infinite number of other examples of his being were fragmenting into a complex network, connecting him both psychically and spiritually with every far-flung corner of existence.

J. J. Beazley lives the life of an English peasant in a small house in the depths of rural Derbyshire. He does so alone and is presently unemployed, which means he is rather worse off financially than most English peasants. He takes comfort from the fact that poverty helps to ward off the smugness and conformity that tends to characterize the wealthy.

Above: Spring Waitin’ by Sundew. A Latvian photographer with a perceptive eye, she says:
“I think I have my own style that is a little bit still like the painting. People often say that my photos are like old painted pictures. I use specific way of post processing in PhotoShop of my works; that is work with several layers, because I very often use several photos in one, as well as I use brushes and different textures. Sometimes I don’t know what will be the result, I am in the process, and after several hours of work I got the aim-the final photo. But it also happens, I just make a shot and I see this is final, I don’t need any post processing, except maybe making contrast and BW.” Visit her website to see more of her work.

I am, for a moment, a child again. I feel the same reluctant sleepiness, the same dull-witted obedience to kind but insistent commands to dress, and I feel the same excitement. Why this is true I do not know. My grandparents are dead. They won’t be there, and I’ll miss them.

We sip coffee in Aunt Shirley’s cluttered sitting room. Seashells, common and exotic, cover the top of an old, battered Queen Ann table. A baby quilt dated 1910 in embroidered stitches is neatly folded and placed with studied casualness on an old chest.

I sit across from a print of children playing in the sand. The original is a famous painting, but I can’t remember the artist’s name. It’s a woman artist. I know it is. But names escape me. Not remembering is disconcerting, but I shrug it off.

Outside it’s still bluish-black and quiet. We talk. In another age one would have written, “we talked of inconsequentials.” We are avoiding the word, “Goodbye.”

I dress sleeping and reluctantly roused children. My twelve-year old begs for more sleep. She plops herself on her granduncle’s lap and buries her face in his shoulder. I see the pain in his eyes. In her uncle she’s found a kindred spirit, and he found one in her. Some but not all of his tears are from arthritis, but he won’t shoo her off.

“You’re hurting your uncle. Get off the poor man,” I say.

She obeys but not happily. She sits next to her aunt and snuggles sleepily.

The car is packed. Raised eyebrows ask if I’m ready. I’m not, but I say, “We better go.” And as an afterthought I add, “It’s a long trip.”

We all know this, and I feel silly for saying it.

I don’t drive. A slowly dying mind makes driving unsafe. When I was a child I found a place in the back on the passenger side. Annalise would be on the back driver’s side and the smaller of we girls in the centre. Anna and I served as security blankets and pillows to smaller sisters. Now I sit in the front, and I feel the same drowsy satisfaction as when I was a child.

It seems strange to describe a journey as having legs. But, if journeys have legs, this one’s first is from Aunt Shirley’s to the Columbia River.

When I was small, this stretch was a paved trail, a wagon road turned by the magic of asphalt into a highway. It twisted its way along a desert canyon floor. I would try to sleep. If I didn’t, by the time we reached Plymouth, Father would be desperately trying to find a place to stop before I threw up. Now it runs in multi-lane splendor on the high ridge, and it is straight and true.

I try to see traces of the old road. I get one glimpse of crumbled asphalt preserved as a bed of black gravel on the canyon floor below.

There was once a ferry at Plymouth, and on the ferry road there was an abandoned house. I used to wonder about the house and those who lived in it. I wondered why they left it. The house is gone now, and the town persists as a name, a few buildings and a trailer. We pass it at speed and high on an artificial ridge. Instead of crossing on a ferry with water lapping at our tires, we cross a bridge the sides of which almost hide the river from view. Neither do we pass through the little town on the river’s far bank, though the road used to go that way.

The Second Leg.

We drive on without pause. The girls sleep. As far as seatbelts and child-seats allow, they puppy sleep. I mean they sleep in a tangle of black and blond hair, a tangle of brown and pale limbs. It makes me smile.

As I write “leg” an ill-formed visualization passes through my mind. I smile faintly as at a poorly-told but still funny joke.

The second leg takes us toward the sea, though we travel not that far. We will turn South. But for now we follow the river along its southern shore. We pass great dams grown old. They are stately with an industrial-era elegance. The waters they restrain bury wagon roads, farms, an occasional village now moved up the bank and well settled in its newer location. At low water there are traces of eras past.

Tribal fishermen and their nets are scattered on the water. The river is never still, but this morning it is glassy, mirroring the clouds and raising sun.

This is near desert, and we travel among rounded hills. In another place we’d call them mountains, but they are too small to be called such here. Great chunks have fallen, cracked off the rims of the hills above; they’ve slid partly toward the river below. There is latent violence and power in these great clods. They should move, finish their slide. Perhaps in a fit the earth will one day finish its work here.

The girls still sleep. It’s getting warm. It will be hot soon—over 100 the radio says. I find a new station. The old one’s voice has become unsteady and scratchy with distance.

We pass a sleepy Arlington and in time find Bigg’s Junction. We eat at a café. I remember it as a different place perched at the edge of another road. I am as fascinated by a mechanical orchestra with its long-stilled voice as I ever was. Uncle Bruce remembers it from when it still worked, moving in time to a jukebox selection.

The place needs a good cleaning. I can’t remember when it didn’t. I remember a giant piece of basalt cracked from the cliff by a dynamite blast. It had the tamp-hole still in it. I don’t see it now.

The girls are hungry. Pancakes are eaten. They aren’t what Aunt Shirley can make, but they are filling. We do the potty parade, and I thank God for inspiring disinfectant wipes and seat protectors. We get puzzled grins from two truckers who can’t figure out a troop of girls who all call me mommy but don’t all resemble me. My oldest draws stares. I wish she looked more her age and less like she were fifteen. I take my medication. It will make me sleep. It is an unhappy side-effect. I will sleep, but I won’t rest.

The Third Leg

We climb up and eventually out of the river-surrounding desert, and I lean my head into a pillow. Sleep comes, and the girls’ chattering becomes an unintelligible buzz and then disappears.

I dream. It’s the same dream I always have though in a new guise. It’s never the same, but it’s always the same. In my dream I struggle. My words, my well directed blows, my shots and arrows hit home, but to no effect. This dream no longer frightens me, but it still tries.

I awake to gentler scenes and a two-lane highway that retains some of its original curving flow. We pass an old gas station built in the 1920’s, I think. It’s trying its best to let entropy take it to its final rest.

“Was that a gaol?” Arpita asks.

I look. I mentally framed the same question as a child, but never asked it. On our right is a concrete building striped to bare walls and iron window frames. I don’t know why it reminds my eldest and me of a gaol. It wasn’t one. Perhaps it was a house or a store. Never a gaol.

It sits in a pasture, though I think it wasn’t always pasture. A young woman is riding one of the horses, galloping. We catch the tail end of mating ritual and horses mate. My daughter stops her chatter in mid sentence. We watch the brief termination of a dance we’ve seen before. There is something emotional, potent, powerful in this.

The pines and firs appear. I feel at home, though this is not where I live. Lodge Poles dance by our car windows in flickering display. I peer into the grove as if there is some great secret hidden there. There’s not, of course, but there should be.

There is a state park and we rest. The girls are anxious to be on their feet. Children’s feet are a precious gift. I remember my first-born, the first of my birth-children, sprawled on our couch playing the “smell-my-feet” game with her father. She would shove her toes in his face, and he would grimace and say phew!” She, in turn, would convulse with laughter and plead, “do it again daddy.” This would turn into a variation of “This Little Piggy” except its phraseology was, “this little piggy loves her mommy, and this little piggy loves her daddy” and on through other relations until the last toe. The last toe was always a question: “And this little piggy loves …?” Her answer was sometimes predicable and sometimes revealing. A shouted “Hayden!” revealed her first baby-crush.

Now she’s caught between being a toddler and being a young woman. She’s naturally elegant. She and Arpita lead the youngest and we follow, watching their puzzled amazement and listening to their questions.

This park is a logging museum. There is a touch of family here. The family connection to the timber industry is strong.

I let one of the girls climb into the cab of an antique locomotive. “I want to drive a train,” she once said. Now she looks around the cab of this engine built in 1864, and says, “This is dirty. Why is it so dirty?”

The answer is disuse, exposure, neglect. Sometimes I feel dirty for the same reasons. It’s hard to feel your mind dying, only to have it resurrected by a pill and brute mental force. And it makes me feel unclean, dirty, used. I feel put on display as a curiosity over which to wonder and speculate, and I identify with this neglected relic.

The girls grow quiet and, rocked by the car’s rhythm, drift into near sleep. We pass little towns grown up since I was a child. Much is the same, but more is not.

Uncle Bruce detours to find a place from his childhood. It was a place of rock gardens, buildings made of gem-like rock and concrete, a pond with lily pads and birds of glorious feather. We’ve come at the wrong season. It seems forgotten and nearly desolate. He shakes his head. We do not stay.

We climb into the mountains and back into forest. There is again in my soul a sense of home-coming. I remember another trip through here. It snowed unseasonably then. Grandfather was sick. It was, I think, the time of his third stroke. He died soon after.

A lake. A small city. Lunch.

For mostly sitting all day, we seem remarkably hungry.

“Are you okay?” Uncle Bruce asks. “Shall we stop here?”

I’m not okay. We stop. It’s early enough that in other, better times, I’d have pressed onward. Not now. We find a small mall. I buy a book. There is ice cream. I choose licorice. I haven’t had it in years. I still like it. A doll finds its way into Elizabeth’s hands courtesy of her grand uncle. Other things for the others bring smiles. Arpita slips her hand in mine. Of all my children, she does this the most frequently.

We find a motel. It was built in the 1960’s I think, and updated at some point. It’s on the shabby side now, but it is clean. Bruce offers to find another, better place. I’m just as happy here.

There is a small park. The girls play off built up energy. We watch. I wonder when the “huh uh” of my childhood became the girls’ “nuh uh.” It’s one of the mysteries of life.

Night comes, and the girls sleep. I must shoo Arpita to bed. She’d never sleep if she could avoid it. She doesn’t wish to miss anything. I felt such myself once. Now I avoid a great many things best I can.

Uncle Bruce and I talk. Inconsequentials matter. They’re important because they distract me from other less pleasant things.

We rehearse shared memories, and I listen to stories I’ve heard before. And he tells me things I did not know. I didn’t know my great grandfather played baseball back sometime before 1920.

Uncle Bruce has a photo of him in his uniform. He promises to send it to me. Then, he looks stricken. I hate this look, though I see it often. It isn’t parting with a treasured photo that brings on the look, but I pretend it is.

“You don’t have to give away your photos ….”

“I want to,” he says. “I want you to have it.”

I’ve been the repository of family history since I was ten or so. Who will treasure the accumulated junk when I’m gone? I’ve worried a lot about it, but it doesn’t seem important now. Only the look in Uncle Bruce’s eyes matters. I want to comfort him and don’t know how.

I sleep most of the night sitting up. I often do this. It’s less painful.

Last Legs

We don’t have fruits or vegetables for the State of California to confiscate. We drive on.

We eat in Alturas. I remember the restaurant from my childhood. Little has changed. The food is poor. The restroom is abominable. The waitresses seem to be clones of those who served us in my youth. I try to think of more pleasant things and fail.

We have trouble with a tire in Susanville. I’m impatient. The repairman is older but not old. He seems to move as does a truly elderly man. I wonder if it’s arthritis, but selfishly shake off the sympathy. We’re close now. I want to get on the road. I shush childish questions and feel guilty for doing it; so I answer them anyway.

The drive is short, much shorter than I remember, and we are in Westwood. It is not the same. Some things are gone. Trees are gone that were infantile growths last I was here. We do not take care of our forests as we should. We don’t take care of life as we should.

We drive around looking for things, places. My grandparents lived in this small house. It seemed so large when I was young. It is very small. Someone has installed new siding, replacing the narrow pine strips with wide boards that conflict with the house’s design. I feel connected to my grandparents, but no longer to this house or to the yard in which I played each summer.

We eat in a café. There are old photos on the wall. They are of old Westwood, the Westwood of my grandparents and great grandparents. Some of them sing “home” to me, but the village as it is, is not home.

We aren’t staying here, but close enough.

There’s a man – you’d know his name – with whom my grandfather formed an unlikely friendship maybe thirty-five years ago. Grandfather is gone, but, being younger, this man is not.

They both owned property on Lake Almanor, but they weren’t neighbours unless one can call someone who lives across the lake a neighbour. We will stay in his house. He calls it a cabin, but it’s a three-bedroom house. It’s simply furnished and very plain. It’s quiet, and I need quiet.

We find the short drive, pass with unconcern a “No Trespassing” sign, and stop just short of the front porch. I see the Lake. The water is dappled and choppy. I remember much. There is so much to remember, but some of these memories will die, having re-played their movements this one last time.

I cry.

Rachael de Vienne is the fourth daughter of Sha’na, High Queen of Pixies, and of Robert James. She was born in Reno Nevada, during her parents’ struggles against the evils that plague both Pixies and Larger Humans, and the author of Pixie Warrior .

Shannon Falls by photographer R. Stewart of Abbotsford, British Columbia

Two days ago I watched my transfer pod dissolve, its once solid walls decaying into a foamy lump and then dissipating as the containment field imploded and the pseudo-matter seeped back into to the other universe from which it came.

My legs don’t work, of course: part of my punishment. I have dragged myself to the bank of a rivulet, so I have water, but there is only one day’s food ration left. The court assured me that edible plants abound here, but I would have to experiment to find out which they are, and of course I must get to them.

It is a strangely peaceful world, this prison of mine, turning under its blue-white sun, I have spent my time reading my Bible (they allowed me to bring that), thought-recording this journal, and, within my limited range, studying my surroundings.

Night is exotically lovely. Planet G-A-3 is on the outskirts of the galactic core and the sky is littered with stars in wanton profusion. A pearly aurora, streaked with silver, its edges shimmering green and electric blue, dances in graceful slow ripples across the southern horizon. The plants, apparently Iucifeinates, also come alive at night, so I lie in a luminescent sea of muted color and revel in the gentle yet heady fragrances. The plants also move, though there is little wind on this moonless world. The planet is devoid of animals, but I was warned to watch out for the plants.

“As a self confessed Follower of the Way, you have been found guilty of dissemination of disinformation and propaganda contrary to the interests of SolCon and the people of Daena.” By this the judge meant the Bible study I had been holding in the Abandonments. “You are hereby sentenced to neural deactivation of your lower limbs, followed by permanent exile.”

I remember looking at the judge in her Pedestal of Truth, small yet austere between her two Badapharian guards, as she sat staring back at me dispassionately. Her stateliness and the severe grace of her white robe gave her the appearance of a creature of myth. Never have I seen such beauty and such coldness in one creature.

Under Derrani influence, the Daena senate had recently abolished capital punishment. The cheapness of sending a pseudo-matter pod through the Otherspace continuum (though three out of four pods broke up in transit) made exile to an uninhabited world the preferred method of punishment. For those who had committed crimes against the state, an additional physical handicap is imposed to make survival more of a “challenge.” G-A-3, the planet on which I lay in phosphorescence and watched the stars, has lately been the favored planet for Followers of the Way. On paper it appears that survival is simple. It is a lush and abundant world with clean water, edible plants, no diseases, and no animal predators.

They say no one has survived more than twelve days, even without handicap.

NOON, DAY THREE. My rations have run out, and I can no longer put off a task I have feared. I must sample the native food. My first try, a lilac strawberry shaped water plant, tasted edible but my throat started burning some five minutes later. The burn subsided after about twenty minutes, but left me hoarse. Those are off my list unless nothing else shows up. I spent an hour in prayer after that; this is obviously a dangerous business.

EARLY EVENING, DAY THREE. Thank you, God! My food supply appears secure; at least seven different types of fruit and seed, all abundant, which are palatable and have not yet—pray God they won’t—made me sick. One, a ground nut that looks like a stone but has a meaty pink heart, tasted so good I didn’t want to eat anything else. Still, it is more likely that a variety will meet my nutritional needs better than a single type, so I am attempting to balance my meals.

Today, for the first time, the loneliness hit me and I cried. Life among the gangs in the Abandonments was often hard, and for many it was cheap, easily disposed of. But I was never lonely there. There are no noises on this world, no birds or insects; only the soft cool wind and the sounds of my body. My mind fills the silence with Seleia; her voice–with that crazy Ice Continent accent–can cause time to stand still.

Followers of the Way are forbidden marriage on Daena, so we had been scraping together enough credits for the trip to the mission monastery on Der. The Derrani sanction marriages performed there, and allow family privileges for the couple. They also have no population limit. We wanted lots of children. In two months we would have had sufficient funds.

Seleia will continue my work with the gangs. She has always been a survivor, tougher, less naïve, more streetwise than I. She grew up there, a part of those people. God knows how I survived there as long as I did.

MORNING, DAY FOUR, I awoke to find a thick, leathery vine wrapped solidly around my right ankle. It is not impairing circulation, and I have no feeling in the limbs since the neural deactivation, but try as I might, I cannot remove it. The vine, like a long leash, gives me plenty of room to move. I can reach my food supply, my “bathroom,” and the stream with no more difficulty than before. The plants only move at night. I will see what I can do then.

EARLY MORNING DAY FIVE. After what seemed like ages struggling in vain to pull free from the vines (they glow scarlet at night), I gave up and lapsed into an exhausted sleep.

I woke this morning to find that I seem to have been moved. My Lord only knows how far and by what or whom. The stream is gone and in its place is a largish pond, almost a lake, deep and clean, reflecting the white sunlight like a magic mirror or the steely hull of a Nayuna battlecruiser. For miles around there is nothing but brown. I first though it was rocky desert, but it’s really ground nuts, so my food supply is assured. The vines have released me but I can’t think of anywhere else to go. “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”

My Bible is still with me, which is very odd, since I thought I had left it down by the stream.

MORNING, DAY SIX. Last night real fear gripped me for the first time. My heart races when I think that night must come again.

The ground nuts don’t glow at night; they sparkle. I felt I lay in a galaxy of stars strewn like diamond dust. The coreward sky of my memory seemed barren by comparison. Closing my eyes, I lay back in the sea of lights.

In a state of half sleep I felt a tickle at my ear, like a small insect crawling, and brushed it away. It was back in a few moments. I was startled awake when I remembered that there are no insects on this world. A tendril, glowing fleshy pink, had sprouted from a nut and was reaching for the side of my face. I struggled to move, but the scarlet vines were back, pinning me softly but firmly to the ground.

I tried to scream, but my voice was still hoarse from the strawberry thing, and all I managed was a strangled groan mixed with my tears and the sweat of my struggle. The, tendril, thin and smooth as silk thread, crawled slowly up my cheek, seeking my ear again while my hands were tied by vines. There was a small prick in my ear as the tip went in, and I prayed to God for it to leave.

In a matter of moments that seemed like hours it did leave, and 1 swear that as it pulled out there was a sound of music. Maybe I dreamed it, for the next thing that greeted me was the sunrise.

NOON, DAY SIX. I will sleep during the day to prevent a repeat of last night. I could not find the nut that had opened to release the tendril, nor any sign of the vines. There is another oddity: I am starting to regain some feeling in my legs, and I can’t shake the thought that it is due to something done by the ground nuts, when they entered my head.

MORNING, DAY SEVEN. Last night was unbelievable! When I awoke, it was already getting dark. I got up and walked to the pond, and only when my toes felt the water’s caress did I realize what had happened. I felt like the healed cripple in the Book of Acts, “walking and leaping and praising God.” My exuberance was tempered only by one stubborn vine that held me by the ankle. Sitting at the water’s edge, I wriggled my toes and grinned like a child.

Soon afterwards the nuts came awake, sparkling like fireflies. I picked one up to examine it. It felt just like before, but I couldn’t crack it open. The spark of light, too, was odd, as it stayed on top of the nut no matter how I turned it. The tendril, exiting from the point of light, startled me, and I tossed the thing into the pond. It floated and started swimming for shore, wriggling its glowing tendril like a faerie tadpole.

I noticed then that I sat in the middle of a six meter semicircle. The nuts around me and to the water’s edge had sprouted and were building. Glowing filaments like strands of spider silk were spinning, weaving into an opal wall that was already knee high. Within ten breathless minutes they had, thrown up a domed shelter.

It is raining this morning–water cascades in gray seamless sheets from a thunderous heaven–but I sit dry in an egg shaped shell of nut-tendrils.

The shell has an opening right at the lakeshore, but there is an overhang like an awning so I can drink without getting wet, There is another smaller opening away from the water and what appears to be a soft mattress of interwoven tendrils in the center of the dome.

It is becoming harder to shake the feeling that someone or something is caring for me, and it appears to be these vines and ground nuts! They have fed me, sheltered me, possibly even healed me. They even relented in the face of my fear.

Tonight I am resolved to lie down and let them come.

EARLY NIGHT, DAY SEVEN. Outside the rain still falls, splashing softly into the pond and pattering soothingly off the roof of my little hut. I lie waiting, eyes half closed in the warm tendril light suffusing the room.

A lone filament climbs my cheek and I feel a small twinge of the other night’s fear. Nevertheless, I force myself into stillness, the thread enters my ear, and there is a gentle prick.

There is music! At least the sounds are musical, though the pattern seems random, natural. The sounds are in layers, some near, some distant, Those close at hand seem earthy, like a reed or a woodwind, and I can’t help but think that they come from the nuts and maybe some of the other plants. Some of the farther sounds seem crystalline or even electric.

My other ear has been pierced and I can now give direction to the sounds. I find also that I can focus on any layer at any distance, tuning down the rest. There is no frame of reference to measure how far I am probing, but there is a feeling of vastness, a heavy infinity I can’t shake.

The tendrils are retracting, so dawn must be near, though I did not sense the passage of time. I feel empty and alone, longing for tonight.

NIGHT, DAY EIGHT. Today dawned clear; the eastern sky kissed with peach-hued clouds. I spent the daylight hours eating, reading Psalms, and using my newly repaired legs to explore. By mid-afternoon I returned to my “egg” to sleep.

I awoke to the music. Tonight I found my eyes covered also, but I can see. “Seeing” is too limited a word, Like the tendrils in my ears, the ones covering my eyes appear to enhance the sense.

The earthy music does indeed come mostly from the nuts, They are interconnected through their little points of light and form a network, a lattice that dresses this whole world in intricate geometry. By coordinating my ears and my eyes I can trace any note down a light-path all the way to the horizon.

The planet sings too: a silvery song of magnetic waves that runs from north to south. The nuts allow me to tune into bands anywhere in the spectrum and “see” and “hear” them.

The roof of my “egg” has parted and I peer into the heavens, limiting myself at first to normal sound and light spectra. Slowly I open my ears to other wavelengths. One at a time, like instruments in an expanding symphony, the sounds come through: microwaves, x-rays, electrical pulses, and others, each adding its own precise pattern to the song. My enhanced eyes can trace each to its source: the collapsing scream of a neutron star, the heavy-steady cadence of an old red giant, the speeding “pips” of planets, the silent, hungry, gut-emptiness of a black hole, the snowy hiss of clouds of hydrogen and super-cooled dark matter.

Here and there are sight-sounds of a different type, I focus on the efficient pattern of a coreward bound Derrani freighter. Its sounds are as fluid as the creatures who built it. Closing in fast is the precise geometry of a SolCon destroyer of Nayuna design; Its pilots silicate forms, the antithesis of the Derrani they hunt. An anti-proton beam leaps out and the Derrani is no more.

I chase the patterns of their departing souls, but the tendrils have unplugged. The roof of my hut closes. Dawn tinges the horizon a cheery gold.

MORNING, DAY NINE. This morning I read a Psalm in the beauty of an ancient translation.

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race . . .”

I felt it last night; the pattern of the heavens, intertwined like some infinite bridal dance! If the court on Daena knew of this, would they still have sent me here?

There are further questions. I have been here eight full days, and the planet seems a true Eden. My handicap has been removed and I think I have even gained a pound or two. The plants have proved non-threatening, actually beneficial.

Seven hundred fifty three of my fellow Followers have been exiled here. Why have none survived?

I have come to the conclusion that there is no sentience in the nuts. Their internal form is too simple. They must be a channel, a conduit. Their movements, however, show the marks of a guiding intelligence. I am considering the possibility of an incredibly advanced alien biotechnology. It would have to be centuries beyond our current knowledge. But what is the purpose? The dismal survival rate would point to a hostile intent, but its actions to this point seem to show the opposite. Anyway, there is nothing to do but wait and see.

NIGHT, DAY NINE. I am back on my bed. The tendrils have plugged in. and the ceiling has opened again. I have found a battle, a dogfight between two Badapharian ships; a corvette and a scout. As usual, the hulking ones cannot keep peace even among themselves. The scout has taken a hit in its rejector coil. Its crew will be dead of hyperspace disorientation syndrome in about ten seconds.

My enhanced eyes follow the Badapharian dead as their energy, their souls, slip into another continuum, but I am prevented from seeing further. Another interposes himself, blocking my line of sight, calling for my attention.

The winged creature that met my gaze appeared to be made of some sort of controlled energy with the liquid sliver sheen of mercury. He (the masculinity was evident somehow, though it was not a sexual quality) was many faced, covered with eyes within and without, with an expression both stern and joyous.

“Come,” he said, and his voice was heavy yet calming, like the song of thundering waters, “We have been waiting for you.”

He directed my sight back to G-A-3, but its aspect in this continuum was a faceted crystal globe of arcing light, the lattice of the ground nuts. I looked around my “egg.”

Three other creatures like the first were standing around my bed. They had come back into my continuum with me, sort of. As I stared at them I got the giddy feeling of motion, a racing to keep up with the spinning and orbiting world, as if our two realms touched but did not mesh. I opened my mouth to talk, but the first creature raised a powerful wing and I was silent. Then the powerful beings all bowed and knelt. Without knowing why I turned to face the lake.

A man was coming across the lake, walking on the water, his feet sending light circular wavelets across the deep mirror smoothness of the surface. I turned to my winged companion, but he had disappeared from view along with the others, yet I felt a presence, a silent weight in the room that told me they were still there. I realized then that I was seeing with my unaided eyes. The sun was rising and the tendrils had retracted unnoticed.

I knelt as he entered, for I knew who he was. Had I not been following him for years?

He touched my head and I felt the roughness of an old round scar. “Seleia,” he whispered, “She comes. She has been blinded and hurt and she is hungry and afraid. Go meet her, comfort her. Follow the stream north.

Then he was gone, though I never saw him leave.

EVENING, DAY TEN. I found her this morning, washed her and brought her back to the egg. Bright eyed Seleia has nothing but holes where her eyes were, holes gaping painful red. Unable to cry, I cried for her, wept all day as I carried her and led her back here.

They sent her here four days ago; gouged out her eyes and sliced her hands at the wrist, leaving angry blackened scars on cauterized stumps. The vines had moved her near water, but she could not get food.

I fed her and she smiled.

I read to her from the Song of Solomon.

“The blossoming vines spread their fragrance, Arise, come my darling, my beautiful one, come with me.”

Her face turned to me and I kissed her forehead. My fingers touched the lids over the hollows where her eyes should have been. With them closed, one could almost forget the eyes weren’t there. I stroked the softness of auburn hair and she relaxed into sleep.

Father God, what kind of woman is she? The gangs had once tracked her with a S’Karith mind whore and almost killed her, yet she loved them. Now someone had betrayed her, yet she showed no bitterness toward the ones who caused her pain. I discovered that I was among the last to get “deactivation.” The process was “a drain on the state’s limited funds.” Now they imposed the “handicaps” with a laser! She told me of the sneering Badapharian that was her last sight as he burned out her eyes; talked of him as if she loved him. I wished him damned to hell, but no, no; I don’t either, God, Jesus, reach out to him.

“I have, and indeed the Badapharian will be here by this time next week.”

I raise my head and the man who walked on water is back with me.

“He could not forget Seleia. She blessed him aloud even as the beam struck. He is now my Follower.”

I turn to Seleia. Her eyeholes are covered with nut-tendrils, her face rosy, lovely in their glow. I lie down close beside her as the filaments reach for me, and I hold her hand . . .

Her hand! I rejoice in the wonder as I feel the tender softness of new-made skin. The Christ stands at our heads, lightly touching our foreheads, and he is smiling.

Through the roof of the egg a stairway ascends, stairs of crystal gold, aglow with a deep inner fire. The four silver creatures stand two to a side at its base, their mighty heads bowed, their awesome outstretched wings touching overhead to form a royal arch.

In the distance, close as my heart, and yet as if seen through a rent in the very fabric of space, a mighty city floats; golden majesty in scintillating spires and graceful arches and intertwining bridges, fruitful with verdant trees and laughing with rivers and roaring falls. The solid reality of it smites the senses like a physical thing, making the egg, G-A-3, the stars, seem tenuous, ghostly in contrast.

Lining the avenues I see people. Some of them I know: Arin, Dores, little Matthees, all sent here by the Daena court. They are cheering. The Christ starts up the stairs under the arch of the angels’ wings, turns to us, smiles as if sharing some inside joke.

“No Follower of mine has ever died here, for I am the Life. This world is Tiran-Hamir’tai, the Gateway. The world’s sentence of punishment is your reward. You have come Home.”

We rise from our bed, and I look into Seleia’s perfect eyes, then, with both of us holding his outstretched hands, we follow.

Tom Whitehouse won the Chapter One contest for fiction with “Heavens Declare.”

Surreal World by Melanie, a German graphic artist and web designer. Visit her website to see more of her amazing art.

We originally included a video of the Dublin Philharmonic performing Dvorak’s New World Symphony, 2nd Movement, Part 1, conducted by Derek Gleeson, but Internet Explorer errors made it impossible to keep up. We’ll try video again next issue.

The trial of Everett Charles Parker was a particularly unpleasant matter, in view of the defendant’s unswerving refusal to manifest any sign of contrition whatsoever. The state of Rhode Island hadn’t been forced to prosecute anyone for many years and the entire process seemed contrary to the system of jurisprudence that flourished in the twenty-second century. It was a costly, burdensome mess.

From the beginning, the honorable Justice Samuel Collins tried his best to persuade the accused to accept some type of arrangement, but Parker’s attorney—an obdurate Harvard graduate from New York City wouldn’t have any of it. “We are challenging the constitutionality of the arrest, your Honor—”

The judge broke in, “I read your brief, Mr. Jones. And I have decided that you can take that up in an appellate forum, where it belongs. My court is strictly concerned with the conviction of the accused.”

“If it please the court.” The prosecuting attorney, Jamie Rankin, was a tall woman with shoulder length red hair. She stood at her table, raising a hand. “There was nothing procedurally wrong….”

“I understand what he means,” Judge Collins growled, “I just said that. And the application for dismissal has been denied.”

Running a hand over his slick black hair, Jones announced calmly, “Nonetheless, my client’s plea of Not Guilty remains the same, your honor. We challenge the state to obtain a conviction on the charge.”

“With all due respect, your Honor.” Miss Rankin countered, “The defense is making a mockery of these proceedings.”

Jones sounded exasperated, “I’m only trying to provide my client with his constitutionally guaranteed right to a trial.”

“Your Honor, this is ridiculous!”

“All right.” The judge stopped them. He raised an eyebrow at Jones. “As counsel knows, the concept of an actual jury trial is virtually unknown in modern judicial forums.”

Jones held up a folder. “Your honor, there have been fourteen arrests for robot molestation in the state of Rhode Island since the law went into effect last November. All were disposed of by means of plea bargain. There has never been an actual conviction under the new law.”

“If you are attempting to make a point about lack of precedent—” The judge was irritated. “—That won’t hold water. A confessed criminal is a convicted offender, whether or not he’s seen the inside of a courtroom. Those other fourteen cases provide us with plenty of precedent.”

“My client feels it is his right, as guaranteed in the first amendment—”

“Stop.” Judge Collins held up his hand. “I am not ruling on whether or not the defendant has a right to diddle his robot; I already told you that.” He gave Jones a glare. “Now the offer on the table is six months incarceration and eighteen months probation. I suggest you advise your client to take it.”

“Your Honor,” Jones responded, “the defense respectfully declines.”

“How would your client feel if I order that he be charged with interfering with official acts?”

“What!”

The judge cleared his throat. “That is what I am going to do if you insist on wasting this court’s time any longer.”

“We have a right—!”

The judge roared, “You have a right to sit down, Mr. Jones!” He stared at the defendant—a timid, mousy looking man— “Mr. Parker, do you accept the district attorney’s recommendation?”

The answer was a strangled squeak, “I- I don’t think I did anything wrong, sir.”

Judge Collins shouted, “Bailiff, I want the defendant and his counsel removed from my courtroom!” He was furious. “Maybe a night in our county facility will help them see the light!”

“Your Honor!” Jones cried in disbelief.

“I sentence the both of you to twenty-four hours in jail for contempt of court!” The gavel banged down and Judge Collins shot Jones a challenging glare, daring the lawyer to disagree.

A week after the arraignment, jury selection began. Like every other aspect of the trial, this was a complex, protracted process that seemed impossible to control. It took three grueling days.

The trial had achieved national notoriety by this time. Legislation concerning robots had proliferated throughout America in recent years and regional differences were enormous. Private robot ownership was illegal in both the states of Florida and Maine, and California had sanctioned human/robot marriage. Rhode Island and Tennessee had outlawed robot molestation. And in Washington DC, android secretaries were guaranteed vacation days by law. There was no consistency, and the trial of Everett Parker was viewed as a benchmark of legislative precedent.

For his part, Judge Collins never lost his resentment toward the defendant and he was determined that the jury would find him guilty. Ultimately, his will prevailed. However, It was Everett Parker’s own testimony that spelled his doom. Until that point in the trial, it seemed as though the prosecution was bound to lose. But Jones made the mistake of putting his client on the stand and when the young man’s testimony was finished, so was the case.

Although Parker was nervous, it started out well enough. When Jones asked him his name and address, he responded congenially, even offering the jurors a smile.

Jones glanced at the jury and back at his client. “What do you think about the charge against you, Mr. Parker?”

Jamie Rankin was quick to object. “Your honor, what possible relevance could that have?”

“It goes to my client’s state of mind at the time of his arrest,” explained Jones.

“Sustained,” the judge’s bored voice droned.

Jones took another tack. “Tell me—in your own words—what happened on the night of July 29, 2137?”

“The night I was arrested.”

“Yes.”

Everett Parker threw a nervous glance at the gallery. There seemed to be hundreds of people jammed into the courtroom. He tried to ignore them as best he could. “I- I was home. I went to bed about nine o’clock and I invited my Sally 3000 to join me, which she did. A few hours later, I was woken up by the police.”

“You admit you had relations with your robot?”

“Yes, I admit that.”

“And it wasn’t the first time.”

“No. Sally and I have been intimate on sixteen occasions, in the year that I’ve owned her, according to her tapes. I don’t deny any of it.”

“Did you think that you were committing a crime?”

“Objection!” the prosecutor injected.

“Sustained.”

“Tell me, Mr. Parker,” Jones continued, nonplussed. “Have you ever considered therapy for your unusual proclivity?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Parker retorted. “And there’s nothing wrong with what Sally and I do!”

Jamie Rankin hopped to her feet. “Objection!”

But Parker wouldn’t quit. “Why do the manufacturers give robots human parts and make them so real!”

“Mr. Parker!” the judge banged his gavel.

“They program them to be totally submissive!”

“Mr. Jones, if you do not silence your client, I will have him gagged!”

Jones feigned an apology, “I’m sorry, your honor. No further questions.”

After lunch, Jamie Rankin went to work on Parker. She started with tiny jabs and pokes, probing for his weakness. When she found it, she tore a huge, gaping hole in him and showed the jury the ugliness inside. “Mr. Parker, are you aware that in the state of Tennessee, you could receive a twenty year sentence for the crime you’ve been charged with?”

Jones leapt in, “Objection! Improper cross, your honor.”

“Don’t answer that question,” the judge ruled quietly.

Jamie Rankin pressed her fingers together. She took a step forward, placing herself directly in front of the jury box. “You testified that robot manufacturers program the androids to be submissive, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s very important to you, isn’t it?”

Parker paused for a moment. “I- I guess.”

“Have you ever had a robot refuse sex, Mr. Parker?”

Jones was on his feet. “Objection, your honor!”

“I’ll allow it.” The judge looked at Parker. “The witness will answer the question.”

After a moment, Parker said softly, “They never say no. They can’t.”

“And what if one day, a robot did refuse you sex, Mr. Parker?”

“That couldn’t happen!” The young man was agitated.

A flush of emotion painted Jones’s face. “I object!”

“Overruled!”

Swiveling suddenly, the prosecutor took a step towards the witness and her voice bristled with accusation, “But what if a robot did reject your advances!”

“I don’t know-!”

The witness was visibly upset and Jamie Rankin pounced on her prey like a tigress. “There are robots that are programmed to refuse arbitrary control. I guess you didn’t know that, Mr. Parker. What if a robot said no to you? Would you be afraid to ask another one? Where would you go for sex then!”

“Please, your honor,” Jones begged.

“I- I-!“ Parker fidgeted nervously in the witness chair.

“What other segment of our society would you choose to victimize then, Mr. Parker?” Directly in front of the witness now, Jamie Rankin slammed her hands onto the wooden rail between them. “The elderly? Children!”

“I- I DON’T KNOW!” Parker sobbed miserably.

“No further questions, your honor.” Jamie Rankin smiled triumphantly as she returned to her seat.

The twelve men and women on the jury took thirty-five minutes to reach a verdict. Everett Charles Parker was found guilty and they recommended the maximum sentence of two years.

There was a sentencing hearing a week after the trial ended. Like everything else, it was a complicated blur of technical procedure that seemed interminable. At the end of the day, Judge Collins was finally able to put the whole mess to bed. He ended it with a bang.

“For each of the sixteen violations of Statute A6512.8 admitted in the defendant’s confession, I sentence the defendant to two years incarceration, for a total of thirty-two years in Miramont State Penal Facility.” Judge Collins banged his gavel and that was that. The silence that hung over the courtroom lasted long enough for him to escape to his chambers. As he closed the door, the reaction of voices started behind him.

Sam immediately poured himself a drink. He was shaking and sweaty and so damned glad the awful business was finally over! He got out of his robe and sat behind the desk in his undershirt and pants with the lights off.

The trial had been more work than he could have ever imagined. He didn’t want to have to go through anything like that ever again! He would retire from the bench first.

But the way he’d treated Parker, Sam had sent a stern message bound to dissuade any more civil rights nuts from demanding a trial. It was too bad for the young man, but it had to be done. Society couldn’t afford unnecessary burdens like juries and trial law. The plea bargaining system was fair and it worked. It wasn’t perfect, but it was all they had.

Dean Grondo is (in his words) an adequate writer of both fiction and nonfiction. He has had stories and articles appear in several magazines and newspapers. He lives in Iowa.

Robot Couple by Pete. Visit his etsy shop, Builder’s Studio, to see more.